HP had announced that French packaging company, Cartonnages Vaillant, has purchased a six-color, 500 sqm/hr, HP Scitex FB7500 Printer to increase business in large-format point-of-sale (POS) graphics projects.

The six-color FB7500 printer, which can image flexible or rigid substrates up to 165 x 320cm and 25mm thick, was recently installed at the company's 20,000 sqm production site in Aire-sur-la-Lys.

Cartonnages Vaillant, whose service offering predominantly comprises traditional wrapping and packaging applications, began undertaking smaller information-based POS work in1995 using flexo and offset technology. According to one of Cartonnages' directors, Christian Normand, it was the long-held ambition to expand the company's capabilities and explore the area of larger format POS output that lead to the investment in the HP Scitex FB7500 Printer.

"The digital printing industry and the massive opportunities presented by inkjet technology have developed rapidly in recent times and, although keen to invest in this area, we wanted to ensure that the solution met all our needs," said Normand.

"The FB7500 clearly stood out among other printers in its class and is the best for printing onto corrugated cardboard", he continued. "The printer delivers a number of performance-enhancing features, notably its speed and print quality, but we also particularly like the highly efficient vacuum table. This positions the media securely before printing and is a key differentiator to other suppliers' options we considered, some of which still require the use of adhesive tape to achieve this!"

As Normand said, it was the noticeable increase in smaller orders that prompted both him and co-director, Bruno Delannoy, to diversify their offering and to meet customers' changing needs.

"We already had a narrow-width offset capability, but to effectively strengthen our foothold in large format POS projects, we needed to complement our line-up," he said. "The FB7500 allows us to print an entire graphic in one go, whereas our smaller offset equipment required two-piece production.

"Additionally, thanks to its multi-substrate capabilities and fast-drying UV-curable inks, the FB7500 allows us to produce eye-catching smaller information-based POS jobs onto a host of different rigid media, such as Dibond, Forex and Akylux."

Cartonnages Vaillant is currently printing test samples on such substrates to promote the company's newly acquired capabilities to its customers, the likes of which include those in the retail, cosmetics and IT sectors, as well as a number of advertising/creative agencies.

"We fully expect the HP FB7500 to deliver on its full potential and enable us to not only grow business with our existing accounts, but also open doors to new customers in the near future," concluded Normand.